Is Knoppix speeding up DSL?

[Kman]

I just got through using Knoppix for the first time. Wonderful program. I fear microsoft will be a thing of the past for me. My question is, after connecting to my DSL , which was NO problem at all , I checked my speed at dslreports.com. I have never been able to get over a bout a 550 k before using my new comp with win 98 and the tango manager software(which tends to mess up programs as it runs in the background). But now, using my 3 year old comp, an OS that I downloaded (Knoppix) , and no tango mananager screwing up my other programs, I consistently got speeds of almost 700 k (693 was my best). Any thoughts on why this is ? I'm not complaining about this, just curious. I remember seeing something about an MSS or an MTU setting being set to 1452 . I believe I have this set to 1492 on my new comp with tango manager. Could the different settings cause this. Once again, I 've got to say, great OS, and great forum. Thanks for any info on this .

Kman

[Stephen]

Windows 98 is optimized for a modem connection whereas linux is setup to connect to a real network.

[rickenbacherus]

There are alot of things that could affect your speed but I wouldn't rely too heavily on the accuracy of some "test your connection speed" site. The true test is in average performance. Did you install any "freeware" apps on your wimpdoze machine? They could easliy had something to do with speed. Also- if you disable pop-ups in Konqueror (that's my preferred browser anyway) it will speed things up too.

MTU = Maximum Transmission Unit and is a setting that decides how big of a window to send packets through. Be advised that too big of an MTU can be worse than too small of an MTU- fragmented packets everywhere ain't pretty.

Personally I have no doubt that Linux runs faster than wimpdoze because M$ is bloatware all the way.

[Loper]

... I consistently got speeds of almost 700 k (693 was my best). Any thoughts on why this is?

Windows, by default, uses an MTU setting of 1500. Because of PPPoE, the correct setting for DSL is 1492 (the wrapper takes 8 bytes). Knoppix "knows" this and sets it correctly. There are utilities for Windows that set this (it's in the Registry, by the way). When the MTU is set too high some blocks have to be sent twice, hence the slowdown.

I agree that, even with the MTU set correctly, Knoppix downloads faster than Windows!

[Kman]

Thanks for the responses. I'm glad I wasn't dreaming about the speed difference. I can't believe how cool and easy to use this system is. I like this OS so much , I think I'm going to try the hard drive install on a spare comp. I'm glad I didn't buy Winblows XP now. Thanks for the info!

Kman

[rickenbacherus]

There are some changes when installing to hard drive. Search around the site here and just be prepared to do a little tweaking. It's not usually a big deal. Of course if it runs from the cd it will run from hd install but nothing's perfect! If you give the same effort toward learning Linux that you do/did wimpdoze you'll never go back.

WHEW! close call on xp eh??